Harvard Researcher Tells You Everything You Need to Know About Coronavirus Pandemic | David Sinclair

And we're playing a game that's a balance between staying in the house and wrecking the economy or coming out of the house and and basically killing more people. Hey everybody, welcome to Health Theory. Today's guest is Dr. David Sinclair. He's an acclaimed Harvard professor and researcher who has taken on the task of synthesizing as much of the scientific data coming out surrounding COVID-19 as humanly possible. He also researched and wrote about pandemics in his groundbreaking book Lifespan and was named by Time magazine as one of the most influential people on the planet. And while he is very careful to point out that he is not a medical doctor, his analysis of the current crisis is being shared far and wide. And that is where I want to start. So, help us begin to tease out fact from fiction, man. I think that would really help people. Hey Tom. Well, that there's a lot of a lot of misinformation. For every one fact, there's another 10 uh you know, BS stories out there. Well, first thing would be this is not a this is not a hoax. It's real. This is not a fire drill. The other thing still calling this a hoax? Well, I think on Twitter that there's a lot of crazies out there saying that this is not as bad as it as everyone says it is. It it is as bad as everyone says. So, I want to get into the weeds a little bit just because I find this the nature of a virus to be something that I don't think I fully understand. I don't think a lot of people fully understand. So, to start, I want to start with what I think is the craziest thing that I've heard on this topic, but it's being shared by people that I consider really intelligent because people can sound so credible. So, the craziest thing that I've heard on COVID-19 is that it is created by 5G. And so, and and I was like, "Uh, that sounds crazy to me." And the um the person was like, "No, no, no, you got to watch this video." And they say it so compellingly, but I was like, "Uh, this doesn't sound right." It It's not. I've I've watched probably some of the same videos. Uh, it's complete crap, actually. Please don't believe it. I mean, first of all, we're getting much more radiation naturally than 5G is giving any cell. Um plus the the the That's not a good correlation. You know, you could say, "Oh, you know, the the bats are breathing, so breathing causes this." You know, there's a lot of correlations you can draw. So, it's it's not from a Wuhan lab, either. Uh, it's not from a snake. It's almost certainly from a bat, maybe through a pangolin, the spiny anteater. Uh, but we can trace this. It It's It's simple science. We can read I'm a geneticist. I can read the DNA of the virus, and I can see that So, I I want to get into that. So, one, I've heard you say that before, so I want to understand what is a virus, and what would human fingerprints on a manufactured virus look like? So, let's start with what a virus is. A virus is um a sub-life form. It doesn't have all the components to live, but it's got enough instructions that once it's inside another species' cell, it can instruct that cell to make more copies of itself and break out. Um and it's evolved over, you know, potentially 450 million years. These coronaviruses have been around for a very long time, infecting dinosaurs, and infecting all the mammals on the planet. So, these are ancient, formidable foes, but they actually have one weakness, which is their envelope. So, I I've said that you shouldn't think of the virus like a cannonball, cuz you Most people draw it like this cannonball. It's actually more like a bubble that you can pop, and that's why washing your hands is so simple. Soap will kill this thing. Now, what's on the outside is uh little proteins that make it it It's called the spike protein. And that spike is what engages with our throat and our lung cells. And once it engages, it tricks the cell into taking it inside the cell like a Trojan horse would. All right. So, I want to I want to go step by step. So, I I've often wondered, okay, if this thing gets on me, can it wiggle? Like, do they locomote? Or is it like if it hits my cheek, is it going to crawl into my eye? Or is it only going to get there if I put my finger in my eye? Like, how does it work? Yeah, if it if it gets into your on your face, uh the only way it's going to get into your body is if you move it there. And that's because the skin has dead cells, and so it can't it can't like penetrate the layer of dead cells to get to living tissue? Correct. Correct. So, we have keratinized dead cells, and these cannot be penetrated by the virus. Even if they were to get into one of these cells, they're not going to re- respond because that those are not going to make more copies. It has to be a currently surviving, living, dividing, healthy cell. And so, the only way to get that is either your eye, your nose, a mouth, or some other orifice. The way to think of this, somebody described it as, you know, when you get um what's it called? Glitter. Glitter sticks to everything. And it stays you you'll have glitter on you. That's what the virus is like. Interesting. Okay, so that's a little scary. Is it as immobile as a piece of glitter, meaning it will only move if I move it? Correct. But but that doesn't mean if it lands on the back of your throat, it's going to stay there, right? Over a period of a few days, it's going to get washed down um slowly and spread down, if you're unlucky, into your lungs. Um but it's not going to walk there. It's going to be carried by the the fluid in your throat. That's interesting. So, I always assumed that what was happening was it was actually getting into my bloodstream. Is it not doing that? It gets into a what I'll call a topical cell. You probably have a much better name for it, but something right on the surface. It's getting into that cell. It's dividing, and then does is the virus somehow still also in a position where it can be brushed down lower? Yeah, right. So, these are epithelial cells in our lungs. Um and we also have endothelial cells, which are in our blood vessels. And all of these types of these both these types of cells have a lot of the uh the lock that spike protein key inserts into. So, they're the most susceptible. But, can it get into the blood? Absolutely, can get into the blood. But, it's easier to just wash down into your lungs than to go via your bloodstream. But, once it's in your bloodstream um and that seems to happen to a majority patients, you'll actually find that it can inflame your gut and your heart, particularly. Um and that's that's pretty scary because if it gets to your heart um especially if you're elderly, that's when it can cause uh well, potentially lethal problems. So, going back to what the virus actually is, um is it is a it's a strand of RNA? Well, its genetic material is RNA, which is a a really ancient form of genetic material. And RNA is is very similar to DNA, except it's typically single-stranded. It's one piece of a molecule, whereas our DNA forms a a double helix, like a zipper. Most people have heard of the double helix. It's it's two. But, what that means is that if RNA copying makes an error and this is happening pretty often in this virus uh it's locked in, and it just accumulates an error after an error. And we're seeing it mutate every few days across the planet. Um and we're getting new strains. We have 20 different types across the planet now. Now, fortunately these changes uh even though they're locked in, they they're not all in the most dangerous genes. Uh actually the most dangerous gene is the one that encodes the protein codes for the protein that's on the surface. Cuz remember that's the one if it changes too much, it could render vaccines ineffective or even come back to get us after we're immune. Meaning you're you're only immune to one type? Well, you know, think about the flu. Uh you get immunity to the flu, but it can come back in different forms cuz it's changed enough that our bodies don't recognize it. And there's a chance, albeit small, that it will change enough over the next 12 to 18 months to be different, look different enough to the immune system. And that spike protein right now only has one from from the Wuhan strain. And there's a new one that's taking actually taking over in the US and and uh Europe. But it fortunately that's only one change. I estimate that you need probably five or more changes for it to really be a a concern. So, I'll ask why are you optimistic then? Isn't this something that's likely to be problematic cyclically every year? Uh well, it it it's probably going to be cyclical, probably not every year, but these viruses exist in the animal world the same way the flu exists in in birds, and that's where it comes from every year. So, what we're seeing is every 5 to 10 years coronaviruses come out of the animal kingdom and get us. And it could be that right, you know, right now the the virus is mutating in bats, it's mutating in pangolins uh probably, and other species. So, we're we're in a world now where we're so so up against nature that it's inevitable that we'll come back. Whether or not this current strain that's that started in China is going to keep going around the globe for a few years undoubtful because it's not mutating so fast that it's probably going to happen. But then again, we've never had a pandemic where billions of people have had this unstable virus go through the population. And every person is an experiment, right? You you It's mutating inside your body. And if it hits the right the right genetic combination where it's either more infectious or it's more lethal, you can spread that. Yeah. Yeah, so All right, let's stay on this point for a minute cuz I want to make sure that I really understand. So, um the common cold The common cold is mutating and that's why I keep getting it over and over or are there 100 different things that seem like the common cold and I just keep getting each unique one. So, the common cold is either a rhinovirus, usually, um or in some cases a different type of coronavirus. And those are uh coming out of the animal world, too. They're not continuously circling the globe in humans. They do die down over summer and then uh will come out in a different form from the animal world. That's really interesting. Okay, so um common cold has a few variations. It's re-emerging uh via some sort of mutation process in animals. So, we get it in this yearly cycle, but it's really a yearly cycle born of our interaction with animals. Uh Now, we have this strand that's it's mutating faster. It's really sneaky in its way of you've got 4 to 5 days roughly where you may not show any symptoms, but you're highly contagious. Super genius if you're a virus. Great strategy. It's not so lethal like Ebola that it burns out. So, now it's, you know, going to keep going for a while. So, my question is how are we going to get rid of this? Is Is the only way to get rid of this that it it will truly die off due to changes in in temperature and humidity? Like the like influenza? Yeah, it's it's unfortunate that this is worse than influenza. With the flu, it dies out uh for a cycle through the northern and southern hemisphere. It it Eventually, we get enough immunity to this that uh it it doesn't survive. And the same thing's going to happen Exactly. Uh but that there's only two outcomes in in this world scenario. Either we all get or enough of us don't get it. So, it's roughly 50% of us have gotten it. And that's going to be terrible cuz, you know, how many at least half a percent of the people, maybe a percent, will die. Um or the vaccine arrives in time to prevent all of that. And we're playing a game that's a balance between staying in the house and wrecking the economy or coming out of the house and uh and basically killing more people. And it looks like, you know, either of those options is not going to work for the for the world. So, we're going to have to do this dance in the middle ground of hunkering down, going out, behaving differently, and perhaps hunkering down later in the year if it comes back. Like it might be doing in China. It's early days, but it You know, that's what you need to watch. If you want to see our future, pay attention to China. Mhm. Okay, what I'm trying to wrap my head around is we are So, we've got herd immunity, which enough people get sick, you now have the antibodies, you're now fine. But, you've got a disease that is mutating so insanely quickly cuz like the more I hear about this, I I am a way optimistic dude, even on this. Um but it's making me go, "Hmm, could this be infectious enough, mutate quickly enough, have the delayed reaction enough that it doesn't go away?" I hope you hope that's not the case. I mean, it's not a a zero chance. It's just slight chance. Uh but it's scary enough to at least be talking about it and paying attention to what is coming out of labs that are looking at the genetic sequence of the of the the samples. There've been at least a thousand viruses sequenced right now. It's sequencing is the term for reading their genetic code. Um and it there are there are a lot of changes that are going on, but right now most of them are just in places in the virus that make no difference and only one that concerns me. Um we should definitely pay attention because think about this, Tom. The the vaccine is being developed using the original uh strain from the Chinese that uh came out of Wuhan back in early January. But the vaccines are now getting out of date, right? We already have viruses that are already different than the original strain. And like you say, that they're evolving and becoming more distant from the original one. So the vaccine makers, you know, are behind the times already a little bit. But I'm still optimistic that it's not going to change so much that the vaccines will be rendered ineffective, but they might be similar to the flu in the sense that they won't work as well and they won't be 100% effective. Yeah, how the cat mouse game will be played with the vaccines is is really interesting. And this is an area where it really starts to get super optimistic. Not just what you were talking about before where it's like, "Hey, we've shown there's a really robust response in mice." But something you've talked about before, which is for the first time ever in human history, the entire planet is focused on one thing. Um talk to me a little bit about that. Talk to me about the way data is being shared um and and some things that give you cause for hope. Yeah, well, one of the big thing that things that's happened to us as scientists is we're normally fighting, we're all normally we're trying to show who's the smartest person in the room. What's what's that's our job basically to prove how smart we are. It's a bit of a sick profession. But what I've seen is people are not worrying about that anymore and forming chat groups um and using apps to all come together. So I study aging normally in human health uh especially with chronic diseases. Um and also infectious diseases somewhat. These students of mine as well as others in this field have come together. Um it's uh called the aging research community and they're giving each other talks uh every few days you get another talk from either a student or a PhD um or a professor. And that never happened before and what's great about that is I'm certain that this kind of an attitude will be continued even after this all goes away and we're learning to come together. Actually being forced to learn how to come together uh in these very competitive fields. The most people that I see, 95% of us are really coming together in a way I haven't seen ever before. And if you just look at the the amount of uh effort that's going to finding treatments and vaccines. Uh we're in up to 55 drugs being tested around the world uh you know, immediately that could help us within the next few months. These are drugs typically that are on the market already for other things. And the vaccine we're at about 40 uh global tests. So this is something I've never seen and the FDA in America you know, usually they're so slow in approving things. Uh they've changed their attitude. They're looking at uh drugs such as uh hydroxychloroquine or known as Plaquenil. And uh I think most of us have heard about that how that was at least published by a couple of Japanese papers that it could help with COVID-19 symptoms. Even though it's not proven to work, the FDA last week approved its use uh in hospitals. Now, that would never have happened before. They would have said, "Show us phase two, phase three, or at least a lot of evidence that it would work." But, they're approving things without 100% evidence that they actually work, which I think is great cuz they're finally balancing risk-reward. And when the risk is super high right now, people are dying, they're saying, "Okay, this drug's pretty safe. It's not going to do damage. Doctors, you're allowed to use it." Yeah, that that is probably the most interesting thing to come out of this is um just to see everybody rally around something. Um I know when you were talking to Peter Diamandis, he was saying, you know, I always thought it was going to be an alien invasion or something like that, an asteroid impact that would get the whole world to come together. So, um man, I wouldn't wish this on any of us, obviously, but the fact that people are responding in a beautiful way, there's so much heroism with people on the front lines and going into hospitals, and it's really cool to see. Yeah, well let me just say a few words about how predictable this was. Um it to us biologists, it was certainly not going to be an asteroid. It was 99.9% going to be a virus, and probably a coronavirus. Um the experts were were telling us, you know, it wasn't just Bill Gates, right? It was virologists. I saw a a wonderful TED Talk in 2010 uh by a guy that discovered coronaviruses in bats in Asia, and he said, "This is where it's probably going to start." And that was, you know, 10 years ago. Uh and so, this has been coming. Even in my book uh I Lifespan, I talk about the coming pandemic and how we have to get rid ready for it. Because if we're going to extend our lifespans, there's no point doing that if a virus is going to knock 10 years off our average lifespan. Um so this was coming and we should have been much more ready for this. And when all is said and done, we have to be much more ready for the next one because it's not a question of if, it's when. Um and just today I was reading up about a virus that uh I recall came out of Australia. Um you may or may not have seen the news that it's actually we've had a whole bunch of outbreaks uh nine at the current count uh on the east coast of Australia. These are bat viruses. Uh it's called Hendra viruses, I believe. And what they what happens is the bats give it to horses and then the horse owners catch it. Uh and this is also a lethal disease that also gets up in the brain uh and can cause dizziness, a coma, and death. And these have been coming out every few years. Um fortunately, the animals, the horses, have a vaccine. So that's one way to do it. If it's in domestic animals, you can vaccinate the animals. Um with bats, it's obviously harder cuz they're wild animals. But we can do a couple of things. One thing that the Chinese government did that was great which should help is they banned the trade of wild animals now. So you can't go buy bats at a market and you can't get pangolins and snakes. So that but it's a bit late. They did that in February after the horse had bolted, so to speak. Uh and the second thing you can do is monitor the environment. You can to see are these viruses mutating? Uh and test if they they grow in human cells. And we knew from bats that if you took the bat coronavirus or one of them and put it on human cells um the same ones that are in our throat, they would multiply. So we knew this was coming. It was just a matter of of time. So those are the things to do. And one of the things that I'm proud of is a group that I've been working with and I co-founded a company called Arc Bio and they've developed a pretty rapid test to be able to monitor the environment and people for what viruses they have in their body. They make kits that detect the genome of pathogens, and it doesn't have to just be a virus. It can be anything that's in the human body or an animal, and they have a database of all known pathogens in humans. So, what they do is they read the genetic material that's in your bloodstream or in your nose. They take out all the human DNA cuz that's not as interesting, and they look for what's left behind, and they can see any type of virus, any bacteria, any fungus, and then say, "Okay, that's what you've got. It's version eight of the coronavirus, or it's a bacterium that's brand new, and this is how we think you should kill it." And that's being sold to hospitals right now. Interesting. And is there a way like do they have the data now where they could be used as a COVID-19 test? Yes. Yes, and this is another heartwarming story, just another example of American ingenuity. They stopped working on everything else, and everyone still working cuz they're essential to to healthcare. They're all working on a rapid COVID-19 test. Um it actually was pretty easy to convert the test. All it was was a tweak to the software, and they were ready. So, then is this something like I want to get tested every day. I'm willing to prick my finger, take blood, do whatever because I had really sort of light symptoms. Um I don't know, maybe a week and a half ago, and if I could have tested myself then, I would have for sure. Are we at that point now where um you guys are able to mass produce this? Yeah, so the answer is uh mostly yes. Um there are three types of tests. There's the one I just described, which is the most accurate uh but it's also the the most expensive. Um it requires you to donate some blood and give it to a a hospital. You can't do that at home unless you have a DNA sequencing machine, which would set you back probably uh a few hundred thousand dollars. So, no, most people don't have that yet. That's the one. There are two other types. One is the one that you always hear about. It's called a PCR test. It's the one that they they use throughout the world. Uh and that requires a box like that, which is maybe $5,000. And what that's doing is amplifying up the virus uh the DNA the RNA in the virus to take five copies and make it five million. Uh and then they can read that and uh get a a rough estimate of how much virus you have in your blood. The problem with that test though is it doesn't detect mut- muta- mutants, right? If it's changing, you'll actually miss that. And then there's a middle test which I haven't talked about yet. That's what you can do at home. Uh I think the the FDA discourages it. I don't think it's yet banned. And what that is it's similar to the way a pregnancy test works. You pour a drop of blood in a little hole and uh you wait until you get you get two bands, you've probably got antibodies against the virus. Mhm. Why would they ever ban that? Uh well, I I hope they don't. I mean, that's often what happens is uh you don't want people making medical decisions uh without any guidance from a doctor. Uh and remember, originally these DNA tests from 23andMe were also uh stopped because doctors don't like people doing medicine in their in their homes. So, one thing I've heard you talk about pretty powerfully, um you were the first person that gave me a vision of what um, being prepared truly is. What is your vision for real preparedness? Cuz this I I think people's analysis of this being sort of a dry run in that it's it's horrible, for sure, but it doesn't have a 30% mortality rate like it could. Um, so what does truly being prepared for that pandemic look like? Oh. Yeah, well, we've got to prevent this kind of thing from happening. Um, it's just too expensive. So, what we need to do is to have what I've called the bio force, similar to the air force, navy, and army. A group that is highly trained and coordinates with the other military forces. Uh, that is number one. The second is have whole armies of researchers ready to go with new technologies for vaccines, cuz that needs to go much quicker next time. Uh, and then third, I would have a global surveillance of viruses, both in the animal world and in humans. Um, including perhaps anonymously detecting temperature variations. I saw a really interesting company that's got a Bluetooth thermometer, and they can they can see where the outbreak is coming just based on Yeah, so that's the future. You We don't want to be blind to this. I mean, doing tests on people physically is a huge waste of uh, well, it's a waste of time, right? Literally, because if we knew immediately when someone had a fever in real time, that would be the way to go. So, I think that's the next generation of what we have to do. Yeah, that that to me starts to get really interesting. When I first heard you talk about the bio force, I was like, "Whoa, that actually makes a lot of sense." We've got the air force, we've got the navy, um, in preparation for times of war, right? You don't try to generate the air force once you've been attacked. Um so, that to me is is really interesting. You said at the top though that this is too expensive. Um do you think that people's mentality is going to shift from this? Yeah, it has to. It has to I mean the world cannot afford to do this on a regular basis. Um you know, how many trillions of dollars are we talking about? No one's even putting a number on this yet. It's too big to even speculate. Um for much less you could do what I just said. And that would prevent the next pandemic. You know, and and also you can you can prevent environmental disturbances. The uh one of the main reasons we're seeing these viruses come out of the natural world is that we push too far into nature. And we need to try and allow this at some distance between wild animals and humans. That's interesting. How would you ever do that? Like how would you create a DMZ between us and animals? Cuz either we're going to go up to the edge of their territory or they're going to come to the edge of ours. Like there are coyotes in Manhattan. So, it's like if coyotes are like [ __ ] it, we're just going to roll up uh into one of the most densely populated cities on the planet, I imagine like if we say okay, we're going to retreat, right? That the the animals are just going to come right up to that edge. And then if we retreat more, they'll they'll come into our space again. So, um how do you really create a DMZ? Right. Well, I suppose you could say the cat's already out of the bag, but we've got to do something. I mean the first thing you can do is monitor the the the environment. That's what I'm suggesting. The second is what China did, which is ban the harvesting of these wild animals in the first place. We've got to stop that across the planet. It's not just China. There's other parts of the world where they where they routinely go into forests and kill animals. I was in uh Africa this year and and was actually uh it was quite heartwarming to see that they've stopped uh the slaughter of gorillas, but they were very nearly wiped out. It is possible, and what you need to do, and using that as an example in Uganda, is give incentives for the locals to earn money from the wild animals in a national park. So, you you put a boundary, you have armed guards who patrol that spot or across the the boundary. Uh and you shoot people that that actually disobey. It's what they do for the gorillas, and it's working really well. Um but there's a tourist trade, so when tourism gets back up, we've got to encourage people to go to places of as tourists, not uh to go buy ivory and meat and this kind of crazy stuff. That's uh you know, I it's a simple uh answer to a very complex problem, and I'm sure it's not going to be easy. Uh but we have to do something, cuz we we just can't go through this routinely. Mhm. You know, so you when you're talking earlier about things starting in animals and then coming to humans, it does beg the question, what is starting in humans? Like if animals, and I mean we are just another animal, so if animals are out in the wild incubating things, what is it that humans are incubating right now? Most of the the pathogens that we get are direct from humans. Um fortunately, they don't mutate that fast. So, measles is still around with us cuz it doesn't mutate itself to death like these viruses tend to do. Um That's whoa, whoa, whoa, stop there. So, um you're saying that oftentimes the mutations are self-destructive? Yes. Interesting. Interesting. Okay, so that's that's uh a bit of an optimistic way to look at. So, it's possible that COVID-19, which I guess technically is the disease, the coronavirus, um is going to it could, because it mutates so fast, actually cause a problem for itself. Without a doubt, most of these changes are going to be negative for the virus. Uh but it it's evolved to be highly mutated because I'm mutagenic, it changes its genes all the time for a very good reason. Because if you just get stuck with one species like the measles has, uh if your species goes extinct, you're screwed. Mhm. Right? So, the coronaviruses have been around for forever, essentially, you know, half a billion years, because they can get out of their host species and spread through the animal kingdom. Very clever, right? So, but the way to do that is to constantly be changing and roll the dice and jump across. And that goes back to this what I've heard referred to as a lock and key, and that's the spike that you're talking about. Like, what is that process? Mhm. Yeah. Well, it does two things. One is it it knocks on the door and then the cell lets it in stupidly, but it does. And the other way to do that is to bind so tightly that it's like two bubbles hitting each other and then they merge, right? So, those are the two ways. But you're you're exactly right, the the spike protein is a key and the lock that it engages is called ACE2, ACE2, which is no coincidence uh found on the airways, uh the exposed surfaces of our body. That's a That's by, quote unquote, design. The virus has found a weakness. There's another protein called DPP4, which mirrors binds to, another cell surface protein. So, the these viruses are very clever, they've honed in on these proteins that are found in abundance in the throat and in the nose. Mhm. So, one thing that I found interesting about viruses, cuz of course, the first question when you start to hear, "Okay, it's hijacking the cell." Um why why is it that it It makes us do bad things to spread, you know, it cough, you feel terrible. Um but the reality is there actually are a gaggle of viruses that are in certainly our digestive tract. I would assume there are some in the mouth, probably the nose, the vagina, um anywhere where we have like an ecosystem. Um that actually are beneficial. Do Are there some examples of viruses that are working for us? Why do we need them? How do they help? Uh well, there are thousands of viruses out there. Um so they're all over us. They're on our skin. Like you said, they're in the gut. Um they're they're As far as I know, they're not helping us that much. Um it's the bacteria are definitely helpful cuz they metabolize things and they digest our food. Um and they even keep the the dangerous bacteria off our skin. Um but I think viruses um as I understand it, are mostly just hitchhikers and don't do us harm. Um it's only very rare ones like this one that actually uh end up killing us. Um so I would be remiss not to ask while we have you, what should people be doing to protect themselves um to you know, maximize the strength of their immunity, um to stay safe in this time, other obviously than physical distancing? Right. So the first thing I would say is um if you smoke, stop immediately. That's number one. Uh hopefully all your viewers and listeners don't smoke. But that's that's the biggest risk you can inflict on your body in the in the COVID-19 era is to be a smoker. Um but you can actually recover pretty quickly if you stop. So now would be the time. For those of you who of those of us who are not smokers, you still can optimize your body. Uh you want to do some aerobics as it's called or high intensity interval training. If you're just in an an you can still do What are they jumping jacks, Tom? What What do we call them? Star jumps? Uh that's the minimum. Um get your heart moving. You probably have noticed I'm actually standing up for this interview. Uh I really uh try to avoid sitting down cuz I you know, I'm burning calories, I'm getting more flexible. My body is much better off than sitting. When I wrote my book for 2 years, uh I I could barely walk after that. My muscles were so degraded in my hips. So, that brings another point. You want to be doing flexibility and hip injection exercises in general, um especially as you get older. Uh but specifically for the virus, um you don't want to be low in iron. So, if you typically have some anemia, make sure you're not anemic cuz you need your blood to be able to bring your oxygen levels up. Um I would focus on vitamin D. Um now there's really good evidence from studies um and doctors' advice that vitamin D will keep your immune system in tip-top shape. So, I'm taking 2 and 1/2 thousand units a day of that, and so is my family. Um I eat I still eat less often than most people. I'm still skipping breakfast. I think a little bit of fasting during the day uh can only have benefits for immune system as long as you don't overdo it and stop eating for a whole week. Um I'm also um trying to keep my blood sugar levels low. Um you know, not too low that I'm passing out, but what some Chinese scientists have published is that the virus can also attack red blood cells uh where you have iron, of course, carries oxygen. Um and it's also thought that you can damage your red blood cells, the hemoglobin, by having too much sugar. And in fact, if you have a lot of sugar in your blood, so that when when you get a test for type 2 diabetes, what they're measuring is a thing called HbA1c, and the Hb stands for hemoglobin. And the it's basically sugars attached to your hemoglobin, which have been speculated to make your blood red blood cells more susceptible to the virus. So, in an abundance of caution, and if you have type 2 diabetes, it certainly can't hurt you and will probably help you to eat less often during the day. Um I still have really great dinners, I eat normally, and I have a glass of red wine typically with dinner. So, I'm not always eating carrots. Uh So, I'm I'm with you. You you got to live a little in life. Um but now would be the time to get into shape. Um I do focus on plants. I try to eat plants that have certain nutrients, a lot of nutrients. There are molecules Uh I don't know if Tom, if you've heard of xenohormesis before. It's a long word. I'm very familiar with hormesis. Um I don't know the difference between xenohormesis and hormesis, though. Well, you can blame me cuz cuz I co-invented that name. And xeno just means between species. And so, what that means is if you stress your food, they're going to make molecules that give you a health benefit instead of you having to physically stress your own body by diet and exercise. And so, colored foods, if you've got really deep dark blue blueberries or kale, these are the foods that especially if they've been plucked when they're dehydrated or exposed to too much sun, they'll have a lot more of these plant defense molecules that actually activate our own defenses we've shown over the last 20 years. So, try to do that. It's very hard, though, when we don't have a lot of fresh food at home. Yeah, I was just going to say Peter Attia gave advice that basically assume every bit of food that comes into your house has the virus on it. And so, if you can't scrub it was his words, then you probably shouldn't eat it. So, I've given up blueberries, strawberries, which makes me very sad cuz I eat blueberries almost every day. Um I've traded it in for bananas and apples. Apples obviously can wash with soap and water. Bananas have their own skin. Just don't [ __ ] eat it. Um where do you come down on that? Do you think that it would survive on berries? Is water enough to burst the bubble of the virus, or do you actually need soap? Uh so I have a procedure. I leave it out of the fridge uh for about a day. And then and then it should be good to go. I haven't worried that much about the food. Uh I think we have to worry much more about pushing buttons on elevators and touching surfaces in public spaces. That's where you're going to get it probably. Uh one area uh I want to tell you about is humidity, cuz this was a surprise to me. So I'd always thought that humidity was bad for viruses or bad bad for catching colds, put it that way. And I always imagined that when you breathe out those little droplets that you can catch, if it's nice and dry, they'll evaporate and poof, they're dead. But I researched this um and then talked to some experts uh over in Europe, and they said that's dead wrong actually, that that what you want in your household environment is really good humidity, which is about 45 to 50% relative humidity, which you typically don't have in winter. A typical house is about 24, 25 in the US. Yeah. So why is that? Well, some of the studies go back many years. What they show is if you take uh I think it was guinea pigs and flow virus through guinea pigs. And guinea pigs are very good model for human airways. Um if the humidity is at the middle range that I mentioned, they didn't catch it typically. And if it was really dry or really, really wet, like above 60%, that's when they caught it. And then other studies that I thought were really convincing is if you look at schools, um depending on the humidity of the school, the virus spreads uh faster or slower. So I'm now convinced based on the evidence that high humidity or at least making sure it's not too low is a good thing. So, I I recommend people buy humidifiers for their bedroom if they have a very dry climate. And is that because it's keeping the mucus layer intact? Exactly. Um because this mucus layer, it'll trap the virus and actually we have enzymes in our body that that can destroy viruses if they get trapped in the mucus. But if the mucus level uh the layer that's on our throats and in our lungs is really crispy and dry, then that won't work. Woo. Well, this stuff definitely gets complicated. All right, so you gave us a lot of cool things we can do. Um if you were going to make one recommendation, you're only going to make one change to improve your health in this time, um what change would you have people make? Move. In one word. Just move. Because the the the reason most people are very sick, go on a ventilator, and even die, is a lack of oxygen. So, if you move, you'll you'll actually grow new blood vessels in your muscle. You'll have more red blood cells in your body. Um you'll be fitter, and you'll have a greater chance of getting through this without such strong symptoms. Love that. Dude, where can people connect with you? Where are you putting out this amazing information that I've seen coming out of your world? Uh so, I put out newsletters. I put most of the information uh that we talked about today in these newsletters that are found on a website called lifespanbook.com. And you just sign up there and you get the old versions of the newsletter. Actually, they're not that old. They only came out in the last 48 hours. Uh and the previous ones as well. So, your lifespanbook.com and and on social media like you are. Thank you, man. I appreciate that very much. And thank you for helping people separate the fact from fiction, get the information that they need, keep them healthy. Um I am very excited to see the world return to normal so we can keep talking about anti-aging stuff, but this was really, really incredible. David, I can't thank you enough for your time, man. Much appreciated. Hey, thanks, Tom. Good to see you. Take care. You, too. Thank you guys so much for watching and being a part of this community. If you haven't already, be sure to subscribe. You're going to get weekly videos on building a growth mindset, cultivating grit, and unlocking your full potential.